Cantarus and Netgear Combine at Futaba Industrial

June 2009
2 min read

Cantarus continues to build its reputation for delivery of innovative solutions that have a real impact on the bottom line at some of the world's leading companies. In this case, Futaba Industrial (UK) - the sole supplier of sequential welded sub-assembly tools to Toyota Motor Company - was the beneficiary as Cantarus designed and implemented a state-of-the-art parts management solution using the latest technology from some of the world's leading brands in their areas including NETGEAR and Symbol.

Catering for its global market, Futaba Industrial (UK) - FIUK - is required to build up to 1,250 cars per day. FIUK is Europe’s only sequential welding supplier, and their state-of-the-art production line is highly robotised to meet the demanding requirements inherent in such a process. As part of FIUK’s drive for continuous improvement, a reduction in downtime for robot maintenance and repair was required. A vital component of this process was ensuring parts availability whilst simultaneously minimising the number of, often very expensive, parts held in stock. Therefore, Cantarus desgigned and implemented a new automated stock control system utilising handheld wireless scanners and fully-integrated with the FIUK accounts software. With the scanners, FIUK employees were able to tightly control and monitor stock levels and parts utilisation, and, with analysis, match the former to the latter to optimise stock patterns in real-time.

However, the infrastructure of the factory presented another obstacle. Heavy metal walls interrupted FIUK’s existing wireless connection and employees frequently lost connectivity – a further bottleneck to the organisation’s productivity. FIUK needed a reliable and consistent wireless network to successfully operate the scanners, and reduce the time and costs associated with machinery downtime. Cantarus designed a cost-effective solution of the highest quality based on NETGEAR's Smart Wireless Switch technology. With central 'intelligent' management of Wireless Access Points (WAPs) the solution self-optimises ensuring overlapping WAPs do not interfere with each other. The system can even detect failure of a particular WAP and intelligently boost the output of surrounding WAPs to ensure coverage whilst a replacement unit is installed.

NETGEAR were impressed enough with Cantarus innovative use of their technology to request a testimonial and FIUK readily agreed. The NETGEAR testimonial has now been published on NETGEAR's UK website making Cantarus one of the small band of high quality NETGEAR solution providers to receive this much-coveted accolade. The official NETGEAR case study can be found on the NETGEAR website here.